Hi there everyone, please please please help? What I am doing wrong, I have been on Ecrater for several months like maybe 5 months, getting loads of traffic but only only one sale in all those months. My stuff is unique and cant be easily found. Please help, the money from the sales goes to fund orphans in Africa. Shipping is already included in pricing. Some items receive 75 views per item but no sales.... this is giving me sleepless nights and I am becoming quite distressful. Any comments please...

I think there are several things working against you, besides the disadvantage that all sellers at small, non-destination sites suffer because of Google's decision to cater to investors rather than users.

I think the market for your items in the US, which would be a quite large potential audience and is the main audience for eCrater, is very limited. I can't speak for buyers in the rest of the world. There are not that many American customers who will want wooden carvings of baboons or wire figurines of a rhinoceros or fabric with an image of Bob Marley. Those are not the type of decorative objects found in most American homes...and those are not the type of collectibles that appeal to most American buyers. Most Americans will have no idea who Bob Marley even is.

Of that small potential market, there is an even smaller number of people who would be willing to spend $60 for flip-flops or $70 for a pair of shorts. And an even smaller number of those who would be willing to have those items shipped from Africa.

You do have compelling objects and a worthwhile endeavor. But you are not using it to your advantage. So to capture the audience who might be receptive to your items, you need to tell them what they are buying. Most of your descriptions are boilerplate about your store...and say little to nothing about the item itself, let alone giving the customer a reason to buy. Humans are oriented to narrative...they need to know the story about what they are doing, even if it's partly subconscious. I don't mean making up fiction about your products...I do mean telling your customers the story of the object so that they can see themselves in the story. For example, your zebra bowls. What do I do with it? Hang it on a wall? Serve food in it? Is it even safe for food? Use it as a centerpiece? What is special about white olive wood? How do I clean it? Does it require any type of maintenance to preserve the wood? Is it painted...if not, how is the color achieved? Is the coloring safe and nontoxic? Why do I want a bowl with zebra stripes on it? How wide is it, how deep is it? Etc etc etc etc etc. Those are all questions that would be in my head if I wanted to buy the bowl...so the seller needs to anticipate that and answer the questions before I ask them, so I know why I want to spend $40 on a bowl. Telling a customer an item is "gorgeous" or "unusual" or helps an orphanage is not enough, not matter how valid those words are.

Also, almost no one in America will know what a "high street shop" is or bother to convert metric measurement to imperial. You have very little in the About section...or the Terms, where you ran into trouble a few months with a return...or Contact, not even an email address.

So it would be a good idea to think about who is going to buy your products and what they need to know in order to be motivated to buy, then fill in your store with that information.

Hello, Welcome to ecrater. I agree with everything the other poster mentioned. And some extra things to tell you. So I hope you don't mind.

First of all NEVER, EVER use words like beautiful, gorgeous, increidibly lovely, sexy, etc. in your titles, or in your descriptions as well! Think of it this way. When you look for a salad bowl on line do you search for a gorgeous salad bowl or do you search for a salad bowl, with wood, glass, plastic, etc further defining your search. People don't use those words to find things with AND they are opinions only! Some may look at the object you say is lovely and they are thinking 'icky'.

Second you are allowed 100 characters in your title. Use them as they are valuable 'real estate' in a search engine. You want words that tell what the object is and if needed the size in inches which is how the US still measures things. Within your descriptions, go ahead and use both inches and metric. Also in your title use as many words as you can think of to describe the item truthfully such a painted, hand carved, hand whittled, etc.

In your descriptions, everything that is in your title needs to be repeated. Depending on what kind of monitor the person is using, once you scroll down to read the descripition, the title disappears more or less so you want things repeated, which is a less of a chance the buyer won't be reading into something what isn't there.

Have lots of photos. You are alllowed up to ten per listing for no added cost. So get shots of all sides, top and bottom. Have accurate mesaurements. You have a salad bowl with fruit in it all in one clumped together photo. This item needs photos of the salad bowl without the carved fruit was well as photos of the fruits without the bowl so a person can see even better what they would be getting.

And I note you are saying that there is more than ten available. As someone that makes crafts and things over here, there is no way in the world I could make ten or more of the same thing, EXACTLY the same. You need to tell potential buyers that because these are handmade, there will be natural variations in each one. That way when someone gets a Mukwa hippo or salad bowl and the color variation is in a different spot and doesn't look the same, then the customer knows this will happen. If you find though, that say five of the salad bowls has no yellow wood in them and is just a brown bowl that you start a different listing. Personally if I bought one the change in color is what attracts me and I would be very disappointed not to have it in mine.

One thing I found very interesting is, my husband loves wood as he works with it a lot in his business. He was curious about the mukwa wood and so looked it up on his computer (one without my kind of cookies). Of the photos that Google was showing as items made with mukwa wood, your items showed in the image gallery so Google is finding them so hopefully with better titles and escriptions they should starts selling.

You may want to think about relating the story of the artisan that makes each item out of personal interest. I also noted that when looking at the Google photos I saw some things like bowls had gaps where the wood was absent. Don't know if you have any like that, but you would have to assure buyers that this a natural phenomenon in the making of these bowls with natural material.

You may also want to tell how much of the selling price goes to the charity. Americans are getting tired of helping out only to find only 1-10% of what they pay or give is going to the charity they want to help, so please as every other charity needs to do, be up front about it.

You absolutely NEED a Pinterest page to promote your goods if you don't have one yet!!!!!!

Sorry so long. Hope it is of help.

Edited for a bazillion spelling and grammer errors!

Last edited by MoonwishesStore on Wed Jan 25, 2017 4:26 pm; edited 1 time in total

Just wanted to let you know, that I have pinned a few of your items onto some of my Pinterest boards in case you don't know how they show up. You can find my Pinterest page here: https://www.pinterest.com/gailetesews/ you will have to look around to find them as I pinned them to 2-3 boards.

I appreciate any that is truly trying to be of help to those in need. One of the things I try to help support is a group of ladies in Congo that do embroidery to make money so I send them all the embroidery supplies I can find for cheap at my thrift stores. We are put here on this earth to be of help to others as needed.

I was just looking at your beautiful beaded sandals. To make it easier to buy, there should be a listing for each size and color. Makes it so much easier to buy. People just want to see, click and buy. No back and forth with the seller. Of course, if you could get US shoe sizes to compare them to it would help.

Thank you to all of you for your comments, I really appreciated it. I have a big job ahead of me now in order to sort everything out. I am busy adding photos and more description etc. And thank you for posting my stuff on pinterest, I do have pinterest account https://za.pinterest.com/DelviTreasures/
My whole weekend will be spent rectifying my mistakes and acting on your advise. I think it will take a while, like many many days, however the traffic that I am getting is already alot, so fingers crossed, the conversions start.

I think there are several things working against you, besides the disadvantage that all sellers at small, non-destination sites suffer because of Google's decision to cater to investors rather than users.

I think the market for your items in the US, which would be a quite large potential audience and is the main audience for eCrater, is very limited. I can't speak for buyers in the rest of the world. There are not that many American customers who will want wooden carvings of baboons or wire figurines of a rhinoceros or fabric with an image of Bob Marley. Those are not the type of decorative objects found in most American homes...and those are not the type of collectibles that appeal to most American buyers. Most Americans will have no idea who Bob Marley even is.

Of that small potential market, there is an even smaller number of people who would be willing to spend $60 for flip-flops or $70 for a pair of shorts. And an even smaller number of those who would be willing to have those items shipped from Africa.

You do have compelling objects and a worthwhile endeavor. But you are not using it to your advantage. So to capture the audience who might be receptive to your items, you need to tell them what they are buying. Most of your descriptions are boilerplate about your store...and say little to nothing about the item itself, let alone giving the customer a reason to buy. Humans are oriented to narrative...they need to know the story about what they are doing, even if it's partly subconscious. I don't mean making up fiction about your products...I do mean telling your customers the story of the object so that they can see themselves in the story. For example, your zebra bowls. What do I do with it? Hang it on a wall? Serve food in it? Is it even safe for food? Use it as a centerpiece? What is special about white olive wood? How do I clean it? Does it require any type of maintenance to preserve the wood? Is it painted...if not, how is the color achieved? Is the coloring safe and nontoxic? Why do I want a bowl with zebra stripes on it? How wide is it, how deep is it? Etc etc etc etc etc. Those are all questions that would be in my head if I wanted to buy the bowl...so the seller needs to anticipate that and answer the questions before I ask them, so I know why I want to spend $40 on a bowl. Telling a customer an item is "gorgeous" or "unusual" or helps an orphanage is not enough, not matter how valid those words are.

Also, almost no one in America will know what a "high street shop" is or bother to convert metric measurement to imperial. You have very little in the About section...or the Terms, where you ran into trouble a few months with a return...or Contact, not even an email address.

So it would be a good idea to think about who is going to buy your products and what they need to know in order to be motivated to buy, then fill in your store with that information.

Don't be too hard on your fellow sellers, remember we cover all ages and musical knowledge. For the record, I'm a 60-something baby boomer who loves Bob Marley's music.

For a little extra information, here's a quote from Wikipedia:

Quote:

Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter, musician and guitarist who achieved international fame and acclaim,[1][2] blending mostly reggae, ska and rocksteady in his compositions. ...
He is considered one of the most influential musicians of all time and credited with popularising reggae music around the world, as well as serving as a symbol of Jamaican culture and identity. Marley has also evolved into a global symbol and inspired numerous items of merchandise.

I want to take exception to what Fox and Fish told you. Your items are in demand, certainly in any place I've lived. Not to someone struggling to put food on the table but to people with an individualistic and artistic sense of style. The problem is how you list your items. Your photos are great but it is what you call your items and how you describe them that is doing you in. All the items I looked at showed more than 10 available. Fine if you do have a lot of each but please use the quantity box if you only have 1 or 2.

Here is an example. The listing is for a blue belt but your main picture shows 4 belts none of which are blue. There is a price of $65 on it. If I were shopping in a hurry, I would assume I was getting 4 belts for $65. You do not give measurements or any other information about the belt other than that it is handmade and takes many hours. All your titles should include handmade in S. Africa as the last bit of your titles. Beautiful and similar adjectives do not belong in titles.

Your description should include measurements, materials used and the place it was made. Africa is a vast continent.
Remove all the info about free shipping etc. Last line of your description could be:
Worldwide shipping included in the price. See about page for more information about DeviInternational and the work it does.
No more than that.

On your about page go into as much detail as you want about the people who make your jewelry and where the proceeds go. Talk about your orphans.
th
On your terms page explain how your free shipping works, the method used, estimated delivery time and options for upgrades if they are available. Will you accept returns? How do you deal with damage claims? Payment methods you accept. All the technical details.

As an added suggestion, photos of people making your products added to listings pages can create interest. You have 10 photo slots. I'd use them to make yourself seem more authentic and give human interest to your site.

Another item I looked at was a man's shirt. There again measurements were missing and in the title the most important word was not included kente fabric.

Trust me. People do want your items but they won't take a chance on vague listings from Africa. There are too many scams on line that originate in Africa. It is up to you to reassure them you are legit.

I took a few minutes to look at the belts in your store. Each listing should only show the belt offered for sale. I was very unclear how the belt should be closed. Also, it appears the belt is adjustable, but it's important to know how small and how large a waist it would fit in both U.S measurement system and the metric system.

You category titled "Bracelets, Alice Bands, Necklaces, Earrings" had me puzzled. I have never heard the term "Alice Band" and assumed it was some type of African jewelry. I was quite surprised to find interesting headbands. A quick check of "Alice Band" on internet search brought me to a Wikipedia article where I learned the item was named for Alice from the story Alice in Wonderland. The article stated, "In the United States an Alice band is known as a head band or "headband"." If you want to add the keyword headband to your titles if you want to be found in a US search.

In looking at your shirts, I noticed the first line of your description is related to shipping. This will hurt you with Google shopping! You should move that information to the end of your description. The first shirt I saw had a mismatch between the title, description and photo. The title & photo show orange while the description says green. The second shirt I checked described a "Frayed Shirt". A frayed shirt where I live means one that probably needs to be thrown away. I went back to the internet to see definitions of the word frayed. I can see where some might use that word, but the common definition in the US means "worn, ragged, worn out, tattered, threadbare, worn thin". For the U.S. you need the word fringe, defined as "an ornamental border consisting of short straight or twisted threads or strips hanging from cut or raveled edges or from a separate band." Also, it would be described as "a shirt with a fringe lower edge" or maybe "shirt with fringe", but not a fringe shirt.

The first shirt I saw said the size was "small", but that word has no meaning without additional information. Since your photo shows the shirt laying flat, I want to know the measurement from tip of sleeve to tip of sleeve, flat measurement from side to side, and the length from top of shoulder to bottom of shirt. If the width of the shirt is different between under arm measurement and bottom edge, you should give both measurements. You will need to state these measurements in both U.S. measurements and metric measurements. By having the actual measurements, it would be easy for a buyer to see if the shirt would fit. This information would apply to any clothing you sell.

Hope this helps a little. I'll be checking back to view the other items.